If you work in an office it can be quite a grind, but there are loads of toys and gadgets out there to help the day go a little bit faster. Here are some of my favourite ones at the moment. The Desktop Henry Hoover is an ideal gadget because not only is it cute and a talking point, but it also cleans your desk! It takes a couple of batteries, and apparently the suction has been greatly improved from when it was first released. If you’re worried about getting biscuit crumbs on your desk, then the Henry Hoover might help. There is also a Hetty Hoover in pink, for anyone who wants a woman’s touch. Part of me really wants one of these, but then I wonder how noisy they are?

I would like to draw attention to this unusually serious but still excellent episode of The Buzz Report from CNET. I particularly find the conversation about Steve Jobs interesting. Naturally, all anyone wants is for Mr Jobs to get well soon, but it does raise some issues. The medical centre were very, very quick to clarify that Mr Jobs didn’t get any preferential treatment and was at the top of the liver transplant list because he was the most needy person on there. Which in turn puts some of Apple’s earlier claims into doubt. Will they be in trouble with the shareholders for suggesting things were not particularly serious?

It seems like every five minutes now, there is a new feature to Google, or a new search engine making it’s debut. They all proclaim to be the next big innovation in searching, and some will even revolutionise the way we find information on the web. I have already taken a quick look at Wolfram Alpha, which says it is not trying to be a Google killer. Mahalo has always been a different kind of search - curated by humans to provide the best and most relevant links for your topic. I have never found it that useful, because if I want YouTube links, I would just go to YouTube. However, the idea behind it was strong, and it’s a surprise to me that it’s changing.

Last week, the founders of Pirate Bay were found guilty of “assisting the distribution of illegal content online” in Sweden. The punishment is a year in prison and a fine of about £2.4 million. All the details are available to read in a fact-filled news item by the Guardian. I didn’t follow the trial closely but some reports of what was happening filtered through to me. I am surprised the prosecutors managed to get any verdict considering they had to change the charges halfway through because they proved they didn’t understand the technology behind what was going on.

I stumbled across a new web show/podcast from former CNET editor Rich DeMuro. I used to watch him on The Queue when I was first getting into CNET podcasts, so was disappointed that he left so soon after I tuned in. Now he is running his own video show called the Synched Up Show. He writes and produces it himself, which is an impressive feat, considering there were ten episodes in March. As someone who has been on the peripheral of making videos (writer + host, rather than editor and producer), I know how time consuming it can be.

I don’t know the extensive details of the Digital TV Transition in America. I don’t know much about it here, either. I know there are coupons involved. I already have digital TV, and barely watch anything on the actual box as it is, so the stories have been washing over me for months. Of course, the time has been ticking ever onwards and the US switchover was supposed to happen this week. A last minute change, rushed through Congress, has delayed the transition for another few months. However, some TV stations were geared up for the February change, and they’ve been told they can go early if they want. Therefore, some stations will be digital only, and some won’t.

I use the alarm on my phone to wake up of a morning, so was happy to see how easy to use the G1 alarm clock was. I even got to choose a sound! The first time I set it, at midnight, I thought it would be hilariously brilliant to choose the rooster alarm noise to wake up. It wasn’t so funny in the morning. Also, my boss has the rooster as his normal phone’s ring tone and it just brings back bad memories now. Oops.

I got myself the Google Phone last week, and have been playing around with it for a while. I’m not going to do an extensive review of it, because there are gadgety types who can do that much better than I can. All I will say for now is that I love it, and as I find things I really like, I’ll be sure to tell you all about them.

I was listening to Buzz out Loud, and they pointed out a phishing email scam test. I’m never one to pass up the opportunity to rate myself, so I looked into it. The idea is to see if you can tell the difference between a legitimate email and one that is phishing for your details. There are ten questions, and each one shows you an image of an email, and you have to make the decision. I scored 80%, meaning I got two wrong. Unfortunately, I did it the wrong way and decided that two were legitimate when actually they were phishing. It would be better to have got it the other way and overcompensated.

Sometimes, as holiday cover at work, I am in charge of changing the backup tapes for the system. You’ll find me huddled in the dark corner of a server room, standing in front of a rack of hardware, eyeing up the blinking lights and wires, and tapping away on the keyboard. It’s like being in Mission Impossible. It’s wonderful.

Disneyland is the host of a new “Home of the Future” - an interactive tour through a house chock full of technology you can only dream about. The Gizmodo story has tons of pictures, and CNET have a fab video. It is quite possibly the coolest thing ever. The best part, in my eyes, is the wardrobe mirror thing. Even though I am not your typical girl, and most days I get dressed in the dark, the idea of trying on an outfit without having to make the effort appeals to me no end.

Have you heard about the “Awesome Highlighter”? As Web 2.0 gets bigger and better, it seems as though people are always trying to find ways to do online things that they have previously manually done on paper. I know that seems obvious, but you would think it was impossible to replicate the act of marking something with a highlighter for future use. Apparently not. Check out awesomehighlighter.com (link retired). Like I said, it does have the word awesome in the title, which is a point against it. But the problem is, it is kinda awesome.

Top five reasons the Mac is winning me over Installing things is too easy. Flickr Uploader is a thousand times better than on a PC. The Mac has approved software lists. I’m starting to get used to (and like) the fact that things are open without having an actual window open. It took a long time, but now I’m adjusted, it’s a plus. I can make enhanced podcasts. Top five reasons it isn’t Office 2008 isn’t all it’s cracked up to be on the Mac. The @ key is in a different place. I don’t care who is right or wrong, but some standards wouldn’t go amiss. Switching from Mac to PC is a real pain. There’s no hash key (why the hell not?) I have to reformat my iPod. I can’t find any decent personal finance software. I’m sticking with what I’ve got on the PC.

Design revamp for ‘$100 laptop’ I always thought the old one looked like a cartoon, and whilst aimed at kids, I found it quite off-putting. The new one looks beautiful. Twitter: Something Is Technically Wrong Well, I gave up already. Gyllenhaal confirmed for ‘Prince of Persia’ Firstly, I didn’t know there was a film. Secondly, that Gemma Arterton is everywhere right now, and I still haven’t seen her in anything.

I saw this on The Buzz Report and wanted one straight away. It’s too cute. Originally, I was impressed by the gadgety goodness, the functionality, the ability to read your emails or your RSS feeds, or listen to the radio. My favourite feature was the ability to plug in your iPod, but then I was told: “You know, you have been able to do that for a long time, it’s called an iPod dock.”

Another tech dilemma: I want to make more Sidepodcast Diary episodes. They are designed to be quick and easy to produce with minimal effects. The very essence of the Diary is that it’s just an upload to YouTube and that’s it. No RSS feed, no fuss, it’s a snapshot of life behind the scenes at Sidepodcast. I have been using a little camera, now I’ve been using my mobile and the quality is acceptable if not great. I import the raw footage and edit it in Adobe Premiere Elements.

Picture the scene: You enter a bustling Apple store, full of giggling teenage girls snapping pictures of themselves and uploading them to Bebo. Everyone is there buying gadgets with their Christmas money and planning what they’ll get in the January sales. You are buying some software, which you have had to ask an assistant to fetch from the back of the store. You are waiting by the Genius Bar. A woman approaches a Genius and the following conversation ensues:

Hello. Are you all still there? I’m back. But only just. Last night, I was pulling a plug out of a 4-way socket and the whole thing exploded, sending me cowering to the other side of the room. On closer investigation, it turns out the 4-way had actually broken inside, in such a way that the experienced electrical type guy that I live with had never seen before. Could have been a lot more painful, if some kind soul hadn’t invented the trip switch.

Mr C always says it takes a lot to impress me. Quite often I come home to find he has discovered some new gadget or some piece of news or something that is just so important and he is really excited about it. All too often, I am less bothered about it. Yeah, whatever. The truth is, I don’t mind reading about something, or hearing about it, but it’s not until I see it in action that it’s really going to impress me.

It always happens: I go on holiday, taking a week off work, and when I return, they’ve changed everything. The IT system was completely different, logging on had changed and we were on new servers. I managed to figure it all out but this time they’ve got a new, stricter internet filter. The only thing I can look at is BBC News and Wikipedia. I have never loved BBC News more.

Those that read instruction manuals, and those that try everything in their power not to. After the fiasco of the snapping turtle incident (see what I did there? Snapping pictures, snapping turtles? Oh, come on, it’s Monday morning!), Mr C decided to go out and buy a new camera. It is the best camera ever. The first thing I did, was take it out the box and root around for the battery pack. Mr C, however, picked up the instruction manual, turned to page 1, and cleared his throat.

As usual, when I proclaim that this weekend we will spend no money at all, we go out and find something to buy. Perhaps one day I will say “You know what? Spend all the money you can,” and I will not come home with anything new. (This is not a good idea.) Thankfully, I didn’t buy the bulk of it, and merely adopted the toy as my own: A PSP.

It’s new. I like things that are shiny and new. It has a TV guide within it that is actually correct. Our previous Freeview box kept losing the time and would show us a guide for the following day. Not very helpful. Within said TV Guide, you can schedule a recording with one click. It doesn’t always work and I’ve yet to figure out why it is so selective, but when it does, it’s pretty fabulous. You can rewind live television. As soon as you change channels, it begins recording what you are watching for up to half an hour. No more “What did she just say?” You can pause live television. You can pause live television whilst you are recording something else. Now that is clever. There’s no more worrying about only having three hours on a tape, or whether you are recording over something important. We’ve got 40ish hours before you even need to think about deleting anything. It completely revolutionises my evenings. Instead of scheduling things around my television guide, I can just record everything and watch it at my leisure. (Sometimes, when I write things down, I suddenly realise how much I really do need to get a life!) It had the facility for Top Up TV, which means we just had to get it. We can’t have potential being unfulfilled now, can we? I watched Entertainment Tonight! This has nothing to do with the PVR, but I was quite excited about it.

A conversation with my technophobe colleague. Him: “I really want to get the Jungle Book on DVD, isn’t that a great film?” Me: “Yes… it’s a great one.” “I’ve been round all the shops, and I can’t seem to find it anywhere.” “Oh.” “Did you know that Disney only release them in batches, every now and again?” “God, they’re so awful. That means they can keep re-releasing it as a new thing and cash in on all the profits of promotion.”

I’ve never wanted a day to go so fast in my whole life. And did it? Nope. But now I’ll push the never-ending day from my mind and concentrate on the good stuff. For my birthday (a rather belated present, but TOTALLY worth the wait), I got a new computer. A brand spanking new computer with a marvellous graphics card and a super duper silver screen. It’s just the best thing ever.

I was cajoled into downloading Firefox for the Mac and I moaned quite a lot about doing this (mostly because it was heading towards midnight and I was flagging in the energy stakes) and I was grumpy and said it was “okay”. I now, however, want to say “Strike that, reverse it” a la Gene Wilder, because it is actually a really good browser. Get yours here and spread the word. Who needs Microsoft?

I thought it’d just be a sore throat, a bit of a cold but no… has to turn into a full blown bout of flu or something. Today I’ve been ordered to stay in bed and for once, I’m not actually complaining about that. Right now, we’re watching Steve Jobs, the guy from Apple that ‘booms’ and ‘poofs’ telling us about the new iTunes stuff, Apple are great! Mr C is a little excited about it.